The Love Doctor

Modern Latins Who Are Lousy Lovers Come To Italy`s Giuseppe Cirillo To Learn The Fine Art Of Amore Con Brio-or Else Risk Courting

Disaster

December 29, 1991|By Lisa Anderson.

ROME — Amore. Amore. Amore.

From Casanova to Lothario, from Romeo to Sylvester Stallone, the Latin lover long has been celebrated as a maestro of seduction and a wizard of romantic hanky-panky, not to mention a virtuoso player of heartstrings. But no more.

Latin men have lost that loving feeling, according to Dr. Giuseppe Cirillo, a psychologist and sexologist.

And he should know. In a career devoted to the study of male-female relationships, Cirillo, who founded the School of the Art of Seduction and Courtship here in 1988, has become Italy`s most popular expert on love. A slim, bearded and balding 38-year-old with an intense manner and a racily demonic arch to his brow, he regularly shows up on TV talk shows and in the pages of the Italian press, where is he fondly known as ``Professor Love`` or ``Dr. Seduction.``

As such, Cirillo is even sadder to report that Italian men, once considered the paradigm of paramours, are also on the romantic sick list.

``I believe that, maybe, Italians are good lovers during a relationship, but in starting a relationship they have one of the worst approaches. We are aggressive, insistent. Italian men, they have to try and try and try and try- and that`s a big mistake,`` he says, sitting in his basement office in a quiet, residential district of Rome.

White-walled and austerely furnished, there is nothing remotely titillating about the room, which would be downright clinical except for the subtle, semi-abstract nude hanging behind his desk.

Forget the suave, clever, intuitive ladykiller of Marcello Mastroianni`s caliber. The art of ``the approach,`` that crucial first encounter, is lost on contemporary macho men, Cirillo says. And forget the smoldering glances Rossano Brazzi cast across a Venetian piazza to a quivering Katharine Hepburn in ``Summertime.`` These days, Italian men will hardly make eye contact, Cirillo says with a sigh.

This may sound amusing to Americans, but in a country with a millennia-old reputation to uphold and where one of the most popular TV shows is called ``Love Lessons,`` it`s taken rather seriously.

So, what is the languishing would-be lover to do? Short of a love potion, perhaps, the next best thing is to sign up for some lessons in love at Cirillo`s little academy of amorous arts.

And people do. Since he began classes in 1988, Cirillo says he has coached more than 400 students in the art of seduction. Eighty percent of his pupils are men. They range in age from 18 to 63, but most, he says, tend to be between 28 and 36.

``Some of them, about 30 percent, have had a bad experience in marriage. The others, they haven`t yet met the right person,`` he says with a smile. Limited to four students in a class, the 16-hour basic course costs about $900. Cirillo says he has more applicants than he can handle.

``There are five different kinds of people who come here,`` says Cirillo, sipping a glass of white wine before the arrival of a private student. ``Shy people; people whose mothers send them; aggressive people who want to refine or redefine their approach; business people and people who are successful with the opposite sex but only with one kind of person, and when they try with a completely different kind of woman, they have no success,`` he says, noting that this last group offers him the greatest challenge.

Tonight`s student, however, falls into the first category. A bachelor railroad worker in his early 30s, Luca has come, he says, to overcome the shyness that is sabotaging his personal life. Though a bright, pleasant-looking man, with sandy hair and a gentle smile, Luca has had no luck in love.

Cirillo understands, and it is one of the reasons he decided to open his school. ``I was shy, really shy, when I was 14, 15, 16 years old,`` he recalls. ``So I know what it means when a student like this comes to this school and I`m confident in my ability to help them.``

But Cirillo also suspects that shyness may not be Luca`s only obstacle and runs him through a battery of diagnostic exercises designed to pinpoint his problem areas.

The seat of the problem

Despite its rather baroque billing, the curriculum at the School of the Art of Seduction and Courting is as modern as ``The Love Connection,`` and as traditional as Emily Post.

For starters, Cirillo schools his male students in such age-old precepts as ``don`t judge a book by its cover,`` or, more geo-specifically, don`t judge a woman by her backside.

``Sometimes, Italians approach people from the back, without seeing the face. Latin men, especially, look first at the body and then, maybe, the face,`` he says, with a disgusted ``tsk.``

To refocus attention on the face and the messages it sends, Cirillo has constructed a bizarre, but effective, teaching tool that he applies in his classes. A woman`s body fashioned from a sheet of plywood, it permits the viewer to see, through a cutout, only the lips and eyes of whoever stands behind it.